Dichotomy
by amor-remanet
Summary: Remus Lupin is caught between two people he loves: one who makes him happy, and one whom he can't leave. RLxSB and RLxNT. Oneshot, angst, has both het and slash.


Rain was coming down in frozen torrents, the wind was howling enough to make werewolves look quite quiet, and it was cold enough that Remus kept hoping to God, Merlin, and about fifty other entities of that nature that Mother Nature would just get on with what she clearly had planned and start _snowing_ already. Of course, such things were not meant to be. It was late in November, but certainly not late enough to just be winter. Instead of having visual pleasantness to mollify the fact that the temperature was nearing inhuman cold, tonight's assignment with Tonks had to be cold, soaking wet, and the most depressing color of industrial gray.

At least Remus was holding up without too much difficulty, bless his heightened immune system – one of the only positive side effects of being a werewolf. He could see his breath hanging ominously before him, and pin and needles may as well have been stabbing his skin, but he didn't feel any obnoxious sneezing, coughing, congestion, or any such rubbish. Too bad it was rather difficult to see the blessing in disguise factor of that when drying charms were pointless, warming charms were pointless, and Remus could hardly see anything by _Lumos_ to begin with. From what he could see, though, Tonks wasn't dealing with the weather nearly as well as he was. True, she had a heavier cloak than he did, but she was pale, very visibly shaking, and she'd sneezed three times in the past five minutes, making her hair flash bright blue, blood red, and green with pink stripes as she lost temporary control of it. Her eyes were fixed with blank desire on the family home that Death Eaters were _meant_ to be attacking, and she was leaning far too heavily on the nearest tree.

This was just disgusting. Practically scowling, Remus couldn't help but feel the need to smack that damn Mundungus Fletcher for giving Albus and Alastor yet another empty "lead." To save his own skin from being reprimanded, he'd opened it up so his fellow Order members – Order members who were obviously more devoted to the cause than he – would come and fall ill. Lovely. Leaving the tree he'd chosen to lean on, Remus walked over to Tonks and wordlessly put his own cloak around her shoulders. It took her a moment, but she turned and looked up at him, confused.

"You're freezing," he said simply. "Please don't argue with it."

"Wasn't going to," she answered with a scoff and a smirk. "But I'm only keeping my mouth shut if you own up to the fact that you _need_ it more than I do."

"Well, I'm certainly not going to do that."

"Come _off_ it, Remus! All this, 'im_poverished_, under_nourished_, elderly at _thirty-five_ werewolf' rubbish, and you're going to tell me that you don't need your cloak?"

"I am going to tell you that, actually. Furthermore, I'm going to do so with a straight face and I'm going to expect you to believe every word I say on the subject."

"You are too much, wolfie. Absolutely _too much_."

"I've been saying the same thing about your hair – and about how you insist on calling me 'wolfie' when I've asked you not to – but that doesn't make either thing change."

Her smirk grew, even though she still looked pale and (by her normal standards) languid. "Been saying things about my hair now, have you? Been looking at it a lot too, I should imagine?"

"Well, it's rather difficult to ignore. I mean, it is brightly colored and right on top of your head. It's even interestingly shaped, on occasion. I quite enjoyed the hair swan you did for Molly after the last meeting. And the color you put on her face when you actually succeeded. You know, I never knew that a human being could _be_ exactly that shade of red."

"_I_ could be exactly that shade of red, and you know it."

"Of course I know it. I also know that, given how you are, you'd turn your hair green, make it stick out at all angles, and start calling yourself the Order's pet tomato."

"Oh, so now you know everything about how I act, do you?"

Remus smiled at this, and even chuckled a little bit. "Not everything, I'd imagine, but I believe that I have a rather good idea."

"Why's that then? You observing me when I'm not in any state to be observed, wolfie?"

"I haven't any idea what you mean by that. And please stop calling me 'wolfie.'"

"Yeah, well, I think you know exactly what I mean by that, and I happen to know that you _love_ it when I call you 'wolfie.'"

"I don't, actually. Which would be why I've asked you several times to stop."

"I don't know. Maybe you're just telling me to stop because you love my brilliant nickname for you so much that it's going to make you explode. With love."

It was highly unprofessional, he knew that very well, but Remus actually laughed at that remark. Really, his and Tonks's entire exchange was hideously unprofessional. Here they were, meant to be on an Order mission (a mission to protect an innocent family from Death Eaters, even), and they were, instead, leaning against a tree and making jokes at each other's expense. They were making jokes and, even though they were soaked through, frozen through, and they'd been here for going on six hours, they were smiling, and laughing, and enjoying themselves.

That last bit was the big thing, to be honest, and the only thing keeping Remus from sending Alastor a Patronus to ask if he and Tonks could go home yet. It really wasn't anything too serious, just a mild reluctance to go home – and a slightly increased reluctance to deal with what he entirely expected to come home to. It didn't necessarily signify anything beyond the fact that Remus would have rather been out here, in freezing rain, wind, and darkness, doing nothing at all productive, than at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, where there was likely a fire roaring right now because someone took initiative that Sirius didn't want to display. There were problems with Sirius, of course there were problems with Sirius, there were always problems with Sirius – but Remus's desire not to deal with them when he could be out, having fun, didn't make him a horrible person. If anything, it made him a reasonable person: he spent all his so-called "free time" dealing with Sirius, and cleaning up after Sirius, and taking care of Sirius; it was only fair that he got a break for once. He wasn't a horrible person for that.

Letting his eyes idly trace down and get him lost in the outline and shadows of Tonks's (presently) heart-shaped face, (currently) graceful neck, and (at-the-moment) sopping, purple hair – that. He might've been a horrible person for that. Even if looking wasn't illegal, and even if joking around wasn't criminal, Remus had Sirius waiting for him back at Grimmauld Place. He had a lover – _his_ practically imprisoned, increasingly unstable, childishly selfish, drunk on a frighteningly regular basis, and horrifyingly self-righteous about absolutely everything _lover_ – waiting for him. Said lover was most likely getting ready to accuse him of all manner of things he wanted to do but didn't out of respect and something that used to be like love, and, as always, he was going to listen patiently to, and then calmly refute, every word out of Sirius's mouth. No doubt they'd be up past three in the morning doing so, which Remus definitely didn't need with the full moon only twelve days off, and any good sense he made would be thrown out the window in favor of Sirius's jealous ravings.

No one in their right mind would have wanted to go home to that.

After a silence that seemed to take too long, Tonks actually got off the tree and took a few steps forward; she came back with a highly dissatisfied sigh.

"Thought I saw something," she explained, slumping once more against the tree. "Was an animal or something. Nothing important."

"It could've been an Animagus – there aren't any Death Eaters registered, but the 'Death Eater' part of that rather predisposes them to avoid-"

"It ducked into a burrow or something, Remus, 's no Death Eater." Even though she was hardly standing on her own power, she looked up at him again and smirked ruefully. "Shoulda known better than to trust a hint from Dung, eh?"

"His history with giving us hints isn't actually as bad as it often looks," Remus explained with a sigh. "He's just given us a string of bad ones recently because he knows that Alastor will make him miserable if he doesn't give us anything. And he probably figures that a bad hint is better than no hint at all – and, if by coincidence, we do get something out of his hints, he can always play it off like he knew all along. Simple trickery. Not exactly the Committee on Experimental Charms."

"S'why d'we trust him? If he's tricky like that, he could turn on us, right?"

"He could, but he knows that we'll make him regret turning on us more than the Death Eaters will for not doing so. True, they've got all sorts of delightful sorts, with specialties in just about every form of magical torture known to Wizardkind… but we've got Alastor. And, mad as he can be, he's still a force to be reckoned with. I'd be downright terrified of him if I were in Mundungus's postion."

She smiled broadly at that, as exhausted and ill as she looked. "You're real funny, you know that, Remus? Real funny. When you're not being so… responsible. And stuffy."

"It's a well-kept secret, but I can actually be quite the hell-raiser. Next time Minerva comes around, ask her about a particular incident involving Sirius, James, myself, and the fireworks that James had gotten over his summer hols in Spain."

"What did you _do_?"

"My lips are sealed on that matter. If you really want to know, ask Minerva. I'm just going to tell you that our Defense professor that year resigned his position by running out of the castle with only half of his belongings and missing one of his shoes."

She laughed at that and shifted on the tree. Even though she still looked weak and ill, she laughed and smiled, and Remus suddenly felt as though he could stay here with her all night and be more than content. She also sneezed again, though, this time turning her hair a grey-green color, and thereby letting Remus know that the last thing she needed was to stay out here all night. Sighing, he put an arm around her shoulders, trying to coax her closer to him.

"Remus?" she asked drowsily. "Gettin' bit handsy, aren't you, wolfie?"

"You're ill and freezing," he said softly.

"'s not like you're any warmer…"

"Warmer than you. And, besides, I have a better immune system than you do. Just cooperate while I work on getting us home, alright?"

She leaned into him acquiescingly and nodded against his neck while he cast the Patronus Charm. He armed his telltale antelope with a message and sent it to Alastor as quickly as possible; once it left, Remus returned to Tonks, hugging her and trying to keep her as warm as he could, under the circumstances. Getting the response seemed to take forever, between the freezing cold and the freezing girl who Remus felt himself holding tighter with every shriek of the wind in the trees. With every shiver, he just wanted to turn her around and hold her properly, but he couldn't. Even if going home was the last thing in the world that he wanted, allowing this moment to be anything more than just that was not something he could let himself do. Luckily, Alastor's silvery elephant made its way through the trees and, in his instantly recognizable voice, both set them free for the evening and swore to punish "that thrice-damned Mundungus Fletcher."

Then, rather without Remus's consent, Tonks wormed her way out of his grasp and took a few wobbling steps forward. Then a few more. And a few more. He followed diligently, only to be met by the privilege of seeing her face again – her ill, pale, and, yet, still smirking face.

"Dun' worry'bout me, Remus," she said, letting her smirk drift into a genuine smile. "They gave us worse than this in Auror training and I still got myself home from that every day. 'll be fine."

"Tonks, please. Just let me help you get home."

"No, no, it's okay. I'm a big girl. I can Apparate by myself."

"Honestly, I would feel much better if you would let me help you."

"How'bout a compromise, wolfie?" The smile became a smirk again, and it was accompanied by her coming closer to him. "You let me go now, an' I'll bring your cape to Headquarters t'morrow. S'okay with you?"

It really wasn't an awful idea. At least, if she wouldn't let him accompany her, she'd have the extra barrier against the unsavory elements of nature. Sealing their counter-intuitively enjoyable evening, Remus nodded and forced himself to let her go. By that point, there wasn't any point in staying out here in this mess, and, soon after she'd made her exit, Remus made his own.

Walking in the front door of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, Remus unconsciously looked for anything at all out of the ordinary, and anything that might have indicated Sirius's mental state tonight. The lights were dim, which was normal and thus meant anything. The house was quiet, which was normal given the time of night and the fact that, in all likelihood, Sirius, Kreacher, and Remus represented the entire population of living beings inside. The scent of Firewhiskey was all too present in the air, which, while not abnormal, was disconcerting; against all the reason he pretended to have, Remus hoped that the pungent aroma of that vile drink was just residual. Drying himself off with charms and performing heating charms to little effect, he made his way towards the kitchen, hoping to see something new this time. Something new, anything new, so long as it wasn't Sirius sitting at the table, drinking out of the bottle, and being ridiculous in his way.

That image was exactly what waited for Remus in the kitchen. He frowned; he couldn't help it. Here he was, standing in the doorway, before his so-called lover and so-called old friend, fresh from an assignment that Sirius had said repeatedly was pointless – and the idiot was too preoccupied with staring at his bottle to care. He was too preoccupied to give Remus a ghost of his old, smug smile and to inform him that he'd been sent for something futile – too preoccupied to look up just for the sake of making accusations. Well, Remus wasn't just going to hand Sirius anything. If he wanted to get out all of his whiskey-fueled visions, then he'd look up and do so. Remus could just leave the doorway and go to bed if Sirius did nothing.

Finally, after a vacant silence, Sirius lifted the bottle, took a long drink, and slammed the bottle back onto the table. It was probably some miracle he didn't wake his mother.

"Why're you bein' so _quiet_?" he demanded, looking up from the woodwork, bleary-eyed. "Can't fucking stand it when you're quiet, when everything's quiet, I hate it, I hate it, I – where were you, anyway? Went lookin' for you. Only found the fucking elf, I hate the fucking elf, I mean, he isn't quiet, there is that, but he's a rancid, self-obsess-"

"I was on assignment tonight," Remus answered shortly, leaning on the doorframe as he had leaned on trees earlier. "I told you that before I left. Mundungus told Dumbledore and Alastor that Death Eaters were planning to attack a family, and so Tonks and I went on a stake out, just in-"

"You were out with _Tonks_, were you?" He practically spat his cousin's name, wrinkling his nose and scowling.

"Yes, Sirius, I was out with Tonks. It was strictly Order business-"

"Bet you two had _fun_ staking out that place. We always did."

"There was wind, and freezing rain, and, until very recently, I was soaked to the bone. The only reason _I_ am not as sick as Tonks is because I'm a werewolf. And, to make things completely perfect, Mundungus's so-called lead wound up being nothing at all. That's hardly what I'd call fun."

Sirius huffed loudly and blew a stray chunk of hair off his face, just before throwing back another gulp of that vile drink and letting the same chunk of hair go back the way it had been. With complete disregard for all semblances of order and civility, he leaned his chair against the cupboards behind him and put his feet up on the table. His half-smile was bitterly nostalgic as he wrinkled his nose and brow in thought.

"Fuck that freezing rain rubbish," he scoffed. "Since when don't you like freezing rain? Remember when we had to stake out at Mulciber's place 'cos him and Avery were s'posed to be fucking girls and killing 'em or something?"

"Of course I do," Remus answered dully. "And the only reason you do is because I told you."

"You insultin' my mem'ry, Moony? That's just not right, not by no one's stretch of mind or anything. I 'member everything."

"You don't remember everything, Sirius, and you certainly don't remember as many good times as you like to think."

"What's that s'posed to mean?"

"What's it supposed to mean? Sirius, I wasn't being particularly cryptic."

Sirius frowned and furrowed his brow at that, and pressed on by changing the subject. "Where's your cloak at, anyway? 'f s'freezing rain out there, y'd need it, an', what, with all that, 'I'm a _werewolf_, so 'm _sickly_, an' I can't get through the full moon without lookin' worse'n a _Dragon Pox patient_ unless I get a potion I can't make 'cos 'm _pants at potions_, an' I won't just let someone else make it for me 'cos the _last_ person I trust is the one I'm _s'posed_ to love the most' rubbish! _Rubbish_, Moony! An' let's not even talk 'bout that time we went in the bloody _cellar_."

"If memory serves," Remus replied, trying to cover his building anger, "_you_ were the one who suggested that, because of all the magical locks on the door, the cellar was a wonderful place for us to get through the full moon. No doubt because you wanted to get pissed as soon as the transformation was done and I was out for the count."

Sirius wrinkled his nose irritatedly, as though Remus's logic was a particularly annoying insect, flying around his face. "So where's your cloak at? 's useless, an' you've had since – when? Since we were eighteen? But 'f s'freezing rain out there, y'd bloody fucking need it, 'specially t'keep your damn mouth shut 'bout all the things _wrong_ with you – so where's it bloody _at_?"

Finally looking somewhere other than Sirius, Remus adjusted his position on the door and folded his arms over his chest. "Tonks has it," he said quietly.

Remus didn't need to look at Sirius to know how he felt about this unforeseen turn of events. The scoff was loud enough on its own, and Kreacher probably heard the cold, bitter laugh wherever he was attempting to sleep tonight. And so it was going to begin. Tonks was about the one subject Sirius didn't like discussing, especially when he was drunk. Not that Remus could entirely blame him for the conclusions he'd come to, given how several of them were quite close to being true, but how he handled them was disgusting. He got drunk so he wouldn't have to pay attention to reality and could pleasantly go about the business of imagining whatever he wanted about the world. Once he was drunk, he flung whatever he wanted to fling at whomever he wanted to fling it at, which usually meant that Remus was on the receiving end of more nonsense than his students had given him over missing assignments.

Sirius continued laughing for several minutes, and finally silenced himself by taking another drink and slamming the bottle into the table, again. Although he very much didn't want to, Remus looked up again and was met with an all too familiar sight. There it was. There was Sirius's drunk, harlequin grin that said, unequivocally, "I bloody _knew _it." It was a perversion, that grin. True, there wasn't any way that, after Azkaban, Sirius could look the way he'd looked when they were younger, but he had his moments. There were times when he looked good, instead of like an escaped convict. And then he brought out that ugly bloody grin and everything was reversed.

"Care to… care t'tell me that again?" he snorted harshly.

"Tonks. Has. My. Cloak," Remus said again.

"'s no need to get so snippy, Moony," Sirius scoffed, leaning his chair back again. "Dunno that I'd be snippy in your situation."

"You're snippy to begin with. Being in my situation, whatever it is, would probably help your demeanor."

"'scuse me, did I just – did I hear you right?"

"Depends. Which part of what I said didn't make any sense to your Firewhiskey?"

"Oh, here it comes!" Sirius groaned, once again slamming his bottle into the table. "'m drunk, so clearly I'm irrational, or stupid, or just plain, bloody _wrong_! S'at right, Moony?"

"When you're talking the way that I know you will, yes."

"Well, y'know what I think?"

"I think I can guess."

"I think you're just covering – yes, _covering_, 's a big, bloody shock, you know. I mean it. _Never_ thought you'd bloody _lie_ to me-"

"Keep going, Sirius. Sarcasm really is a lovely color on you."

"I mean, you just… let's see. Lied when we were in school, until I fucking figured you _out_ and _called_ you on it. Lied after school, though… t'be fair to you, you just didn't bloody tell anyone anything – except Lily sometimes, which you know you only bloody got away with because James never _knew_ you had a crush on her. Always suspected me and Snivellus, but not you. Why? Because _you _want everyone to think you're about as sexually threatening as a _houseplant _– which is _also_ a bloody lie! I dun'even wanna _think_ about all the lies you've told the _kids_, and I know the only one who'd even get close to figuring you out's Hermione because, let's be honest, _my_ godson loves you and Ron's just not that bright!"

"Is there a _point_ to this?" Remus asked, attempting (and failing) to detach himself from this situation. "Or are you just going to point out every lie I've ever told for the next hour? There was a great one when I was six. Tried to tell my mum that no, I hadn't gotten into my dad's sweets before supper, even though I had sugar all over my hands."

"Point _is_, m'dear Moony," Sirius chuckled darkly, finally standing up from the table, "that you are a lying liar." Scowling, he pointed at Remus with the hand that wasn't holding onto the neck of his bottle. "And 'cos you're such a lying liar, not only can nobody bloody well believe a word you say, least of all me, even though I should be fucking able to believe you 'cos the big idea here is that you're s'posed to tell _me_ the truth. But, no. Course you don't tell me the truth. And why's that? 'Cos you are such a _lying liar_ that you don't even tell _yourself_ the truth! Bet you think about her all the time when you're with me, but bet you can't let yourself know that!"

"Actually, I think about _you _when I'm with you, and, with how you insist on acting, I think about you when I'm with Tonks as well. And I'm rather known for being the one here who stands to gain nothing by lying."

"What's that s'posed to mean? _I_ tell the truth, Moony. 'S more'n I can say for certain people 'round here, but _I_ tell the truth."

"Oh, so you tell Harry everything?"

"Course I tell him everything! He's my godson! I'm all he has!"

"So," Remus sighed wearily. There wasn't any point in trying not to sound bitter, at this point. "You tell him about how you routinely slip out of reality and into memory, and how, once you come back from these jaunts into your own mind, your usual course of action is to drink yourself into oblivion because you don't want to remember anything. You tell him about passing out, about being shoved into cold showers by not just by your lover-cum-nanny, but also by Molly, and Arthur, and Minerva, and Kingsley, and Bill, and Severus – _Severus_! Severus, who so unreasonably hates you, worked to revive you because I wasn't here to do it myself! Did you tell Harry that?"

"Maybe I didn't," Sirius sneered slowly, "but at least I'm not cheating on someone with his cousin. His twenty-_two_-year-oldcousin."

"Would that I were cheating on you with her, Sirius. Would that I were."

"What's that s'posed to mean?"

"Well, that'd make both of us _happy_, wouldn't it? I'd get a break from constantly being called a lying, cheating bastard with someone who treats me properly, and you'd get to be right, so you'd have one less thing to drink about. Or one more thing, knowing you."

The next thing Remus was aware of was Sirius smacking him clean across the face. He made it hurt, too. When Remus opened his eyes to look, they wound up locked on Sirius's, brown on gray. Sirius was obviously enraged, and Remus couldn't honestly bring himself to blame the poor drunk. Even if he was being a right bastard to someone he professed to love – even if he'd been doing so on a progressively frequent basis ever since Dumbledore had first cooped him up in this damnable fucking house – Remus had hit him low, made it hurt. Remus had wanted to make it hurt. If Sirius had the right to hurt him, then he could handle it. He could nod and calmly stomach all manner of accusations and insults – but if Sirius had the right to make Remus wish he had the gall just to kiss Tonks, then Remus had the right to hurt him back. And Sirius would just have to handle it like a man. Merlin knew he wouldn't man up about anything else.

The fact that Sirius was the first of them to look away, no doubt meant that he knew this too. The look on his face said that this knowledge was the last thing he wanted.

"I'm going to bed," Remus said dully. "Wake me up when you think you're dying."

As he retreated up the stairs, Remus could've sworn that he heard a pitiful whimper of, "Moony," followed by the sniffling call of, "_Remus_," but he forced himself to ignore them, only thinking of how much happier he'd been in the freezing rain. Even when he thought he heard a louder cry, he ignored it and pressed forward, heading for Sirius's old room instead. It was cruel. He knew this better than most things he claimed to know, but there was hardly any sense in going back to that conversation. It was clear that lunacy and liquor had won Sirius over for the evening, and Remus liked that fact even less than he liked the trashy magazines and pin-ups that decorated Sirius's room. That said, like said pornography, Sirius's love of drink wasn't going away. The only thing to be done was to deal with it like a man. After all, one of them had to be responsible. Between their problems, Harry's problems, the Order's problems, and the world's problems, someone had to make sure that both of them were still alive in the morning. Sirius was clearly disinterested.

Remus crawled into bed alone; after a too-long stretch of time spent rolling from one side to the other, it almost looked like he might sleep. Then, like a helpless puppy, Sirius snuck in behind him, put an arm around his waist and clung, and began nuzzling him, sniveling, "Remus… Moony… _Remus_." Vaguely, Remus was aware of the phrases, "Please don't leave me" and, "I can't be alone" being mewled in his ear, but his only response was to turn around and start the kiss that had to come.

Whatever they said to each other, kisses always came. They had to. Remus had to apologize somehow for Sirius's accusations being even half-true.


End file.
